elseworldexiles | Suspiciously Quiet

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Suspiciously Quiet

The carnage in the hotel ballroom disappears in a gut wrenching wave of nausea and blurryness. When she can see again, she's on her knees, surrounded by her fellow Exiles.

Raven braces herself for the worst. Zombies roaming the streets, the sun blotted out by swarms of locusts, a world where every restaurant is non-smoking. She opens her eyes and sees...a suburban strip mall.

A Best Buy anchors one end. The other end is held down by a Dick's Sporting Goods. In between, there are a couple of ethnic restaurants, some clothing stores, and, to her immense relief, a Cox Smoker's Outlet.

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"It took me years to get the knack of pockets."

She keeps poking her finger into the bloody gash; sometimes frowning, sometimes grining, always trying to worm her fingers deeper under the top layer of skin.

A six year old boy drags his mother over. The woman looks chagrined until she sees the gaping skin where Mystique is trying to form a pocket.

"I gots a bandaid you can use." He pulls a Spongebob Squarepants bandaid off his scabby knee and holds it out to the older blue woman.

His mother looks a little queesy.

"Um...ma'am...do you need a ride to a hospital?"

A couple bored looking clerks stand chatting at the door of store called, 'Juicy!'

The blonde sees Sarah and offers a cheerful smile.

"Hi there! Oh, wow. Are you looking for clothes that'll be all easy to fit over a sling? We have some awesome new fall blouses."

Raven's head snaps up as they interrupt her contemplation. Oh, yeah. You're a great spy. Good job not being crept up on in a whole new world.

"It's nothing," she says, "Special effects for a movie we're in."

"Who makes movies in Springfield, Illinois?"

The mother looks unconvinced.

"Art students. Just look at that hair." She points at her granddaughter's blonde streak.

Her face grave, she takes the proffered bandaid and puts it over a tiny portion of the wound. When she rubs her hand over the rest, the line heals closed.

"These are really great bandaids," she says. "All better. Thank you."

"My big sister can make things get all bouncy with her mind, but she's not blue."

The boy takes Spongebob Squarepants healing abilities entirely for granted.

Sarah gives the girl a bright smile, then glances down at her arm, the expression fading a little. "Yeah... just need a few new things." Her face colors a little as she steps in closer. "Don't suppose you could help me find a couple things and try them on. I'm still trying to get used to this sling."
Not to mention this whole shopping and normal clothes thing.

"Oh, totally! It's not like this place is hopping on a Tuesday." She absentmindedly waves at the empty store.

"I'm Gretchen." She holds out a hand to shake, then blushes, looks at the sling, and holds out the other one.

Sarah winces as she automatically tries to move her arm, then sheepishly extends her other hand to shake instead. "Sarah." she responds, her current state and unusual surroundings putting her off her usual self-assuredness a bit.

Spidey's listening, but he's also a bit distant, towards the Chinese place, like that guy who's always sorta lingering in the direction everyone needs to go, so nobody gets too distracted and forgets what they're doing. Never been a big fan of dilly-dallying.

Still... sounds like mutants might be a bit more normal here.

"That's a pretty name." Gretchen smiles. "All Biblical and stuff. My mom named me after her grandma - who was awesome, but c'mon." She leans in and whispers conspiratorially, "It could be worse. My brother's name is Ingo."

She shakes her head, smiling in sympathy for her brother. "Mom's grandparents came here after the war and all. It's like, this crazy romantic story, cause they totally never would've met in thier home country."

Gretchen leads Sarah over to a rack of twinsets and starts holding them up in front of the other girl, pursing her lips in contemplation.

"She got into The Academy." The mother is momentarily distracted by pride in her offspring. "I hate to see her go to a boarding school, but they have plenty of chances for parents to visit, and it's one of the top prep schools in the country, even without all the extra curriculars."

She turns to the man trailing behind. "Are you the, er. cameraman?" Her fingers curl into air quotes.

"Thanks." Sarah responds at first, listening to the story as she goes, and then more than happy to let the other girl pick things out for her. She's able to give her sizes, maybe look over a couple of the green blouses in particular - she inherited her mother's thing for green, but otherwise is pretty useless at shopping, but she's enjoying the company.
"I'd love to hear it sometime." she replies to the bit about the story, not really considering the unlikeliness of that, given they'll probably have to leave soon, but she's enjoying the moment to relax and hang out, and not having to deal with her fellow Exiles for a bit.
"My parents were the last people anyone thought would ever get together. I mean, sure they were... uhm, kind of immigrants in a pretty closed community, but still..."

"Oooh," Gretchen coos. "That's soooo romantic. I love it when unlikely couples meet each other." She gives Sarah a big grin, then blushes.

"How high can you lift that arm?" Gretchen may be chatting, but when it comes to clothes, she's entirely practical. "If you can get the tank top half of the twinset on now, while it's still warm, you'll have the matching sweater with long sleeves when things cool down."

She walks in a circle around Sarah, then nods to herself. "And you should totally try a wrap. I always feel all fumble fingers when I wear them, but you can put your hurt arm through all careful-like, then ease the rest of it around you and tie it closed. I know it sounds all complicated, cause there are extra strings and stuff on the inside, but I can, you know, show you how."

"Uhm, not much... I mean, I can move it ok, but I dislocated the shoulder, so the more I do, the longer it'll take to heal." she explains apologetically. "If you want to come into the changing room and give me a hand though, I'm willing to try it on... I've always stuck with mostly pretty simple stuff, usually kind of a tomboy, so I'm better off with things that are a little more durable." She glances at her dirty, somewhat ragged current outfit. "Not that it did me much good."

She steps into the changing area, looking a little nervous, but still grinning. "So anyway, show me how this works, and you can tell me about your grandparents or whatever... my Dad was always big on war stories, but not many of them were so happy. Its really nice to hear."

Gretchen carefully helps Sarah out of her blouse. She stares for a second, chewing her lip.

"Um...I'll be right back."

She comes back with a tape measure, then disappears again. When she returns, she has half a dozen bras with a front closure. "This one's a sport's bra, since you said you're a tomboy." She looks a little sheepish. "I just, like, thought it'd be easier if you didn't have to reach around behind yourself with a bad arm, you know?" She gives her a quick nervous smile, then blushes.

Demonstrating the wrap gives her something to do. Gretchen carefully thread's Sarah's arm through one sleeve of the wrap then holds it up for her to put her other arm through. Then she ties the interior string to keep the left side closed and shows her how to tie the big exterior bow on the right. "You don't have to move your shoulder at all in this."

She stands back and smiles, pleased with the effect. "And, like, you totally don't have to listen to my boring old family stories. But it's sweet of you to ask." She blushes again.

Sarah does as instructed, and lets Gretchen take her measurements and all, nodding in thanks as the reasoning behind the sports bra is brought up. "That's a lot of help, thank you." she says as she fumbled one-handed with the strings on her first try.
"And seriously, its ok. Uhm... I really appreciate all the help." she settles a little more back into her usual self-confidence, as she finally figures out how to manage the bow one handed. "Ok, so if you don't want to talk about your family more, how about yourself? I'm really new here, so maybe you could tell me what kind of things you like to do in this place?"

"I still take karate a couple times a week. Most of the girls have outgrown it, but I think it's fun." Gretchen shoots her a shy look. "And, like, I'm totally tougher than any of the boys at school."

She pops out of the changing room again and comes back with several pairs of jeans and one nice pair of soft brown trousers. "To go with the green blouse - you know, in case you have to go somewhere nice."

Another little blush and Gretchen says, "My shift actually ended ten minutes ago. If you want, I can get you all cashed out then, y'know, if you'd kinda like some coffe or something, maybe tell you all about my namesake." She's staring at the carpet as she speaks.

Sarah looks up with a bright smile as Gretchen comes back with the clothes, about to tell her how she loves karate... and totally understands being tougher than all the boys. Then, for some reason, she pauses, hearing the last of it. Then she pauses a little more.

"I'd like that." she replies when she finds her voice.

Gretchen's blush climbs all the way to her ears. "Okay."

Still not quite able to make eye contact with Sarah, she quickly rings everything up. If Sarah checks the reciept, she'll find Gretchen used her employee discount. As she packs everything up, a couple of green scrunchies and barettes find their way into the bags.

"Here, let me get this." Gretchen nods to Sarah's arm. "There's a Starbucks just down the mall, or a Java Dave's up the street if you prefer something independent."

"I... uhm, I'm not usually big on coffee, too much energy is usually more my problem. But if either of them have hot chocolate, this is on me." she replies, having noted the discount.

"Java Dave's has great hot chocolate. You can get flavor shots in it. The raspberry is really good. Oooh, and so's the mint. Or the vanilla. I know it sounds silly, putting a shot of vanilla flavor into hot chocolate, but it's really yummy."

Gretchen leads the way. She waves at a conservatively dressed girl with matching purple eyes and hair behind the counter.

Sarah takes the purple hair in stride - growing up among super heroes and few others will do that. She waves, a little more shyly, then follows after. "Actually, that sounds wonderful. Its been ages since I had hot chocolate... I, uhm, end up kind of bouncing around a lot, not always a lot of time to really get used to anywhere." she explains, stumbling a little as she tries to figure out how to explain her situation without really explaining it.

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